Follow the crazy adventures of an Alabama cyclist taking on the Race Across America in 2015.

Birmingham to Mount Cheaha

Yesterday, I opted out of a race to enjoy a little adventure with my family before spring break was over, and before my race schedule is completely full. We haven’t been to Mount Cheaha in a little while now, so before spring break was over I wanted to see if we could go for a short hike and have dinner up on Mount Cheaha. We picked the perfect day because after watching a beautiful sunset, we got to see a very cool red moon rising (supermoon). It was awesome! A video, pictures, and data below tell the story.

The ride was great, and I hit the early climbs hard before settling into Zone 3 to set a fast pace with the intention of pushing it back into Zone 5 for Cheaha after a long ride. Unfortunately, the rough roads of the past few weeks caught up to me and I managed to lose a chainring bolt! The consequence of this being that I couldn’t push it hard in the small chainring without dropping the chain. So I had to climb up Cheaha sitting down grinding a somewhat large gear (39×21 and 39×19) or spinning in my granny gear.